In this episode of The MHP Broker’s Tips and Tricks Closing Cocktail podcast, Maxwell Baker, president of The Mobile Home Park Broker, who chatted with brokers Eric Wanck and Josie Quiroga about their closing on East Village MHP in Oklahoma. While the park was heavy on park-owned homes, strong communication, a motivated buyer, and a local lender who appraised over asking made for one of the smoother transactions in recent memory.
As with every Tips and Tricks podcast episode, this one is brought to you by The MHP Broker’s proprietary Community Price Maximizer. Use this four-step system to get the highest price possible for your mobile home park or RV community when you sell it through The MHP Broker. Guaranteed. Call Max for details.
Here Are the Show Highlights:
- Another Closing Cocktail, another win for the team — this time in Oklahoma with East Village MHP. Solid infrastructure, paved roads, and city water/sewer made it a smoother ride than most. (Max, 0:22)
- Buyer profile: younger powerhouse, already building a footprint across Texas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana. He had a clear vision to replace the older home by bringing in new homes to expand value long-term. (Eric, 3:25)
- Smooth deals are rare in this business, but strong communication all around kept collections steady and expectations aligned throughout due diligence. (Eric, 3:57)
- Lesson learned: communication is everything. When buyer, seller, and brokers stay aligned, even an all-POH community can glide across the finish line. (Josie, 4:39)
- The park was heavy on park-owned homes, which usually complicates financing, but the buyer came with a local lender who not only got it done but appraised the park owned homes over asking price. (Eric, 4:43)
- Proof once again that The MHP Broker’s process works — an 86% close ratio and a track record of solving the tough parts before they become deal-killers. (Max, 7:16)
What a team! Ask Eric, Josie, and/or Max to represent your next sale of a mobile home park or RV community. Get maximum price and minimal hassles. Call us at The MHP Broker, (678) 932-0200. Or drop us a line at info@themhpbroker.com.
Power Quotes in This Episode:
“This was a deal out in Oklahoma…fairly straightforward park, good solid infrastructure, and it all checked out in DD.” (Eric, 2:57)
“The buyer did a good job of keeping us in check and keeping the seller in check, making sure collections stayed strong all the way through.” (Eric, 3:57)
“Great communication all the way around. Buyer, seller, and our team stayed in sync from start to finish.” (Josie, 4:39)
“Truthfully, anytime we have an all POH community, you kind of cross your fingers on the appraisal — but this one appraised over asking price.” (Eric, 4:43)
“Communication through the process is paramount to having a smooth transaction.” (Eric, 6:31)
“If you go to our competitors, they are in and out of contract. I guarantee you they are less than 50%. Our close ratio is north of 86% because we do the work upfront — that’s not puffery, that’s facts.” (Max, 7:16)
00:00
Hello and welcome to the Mobile Home Park Brokers’ tips and tricks. This is the podcast where we talk about mobile home park investing because that’s what we’ve been involved in for the last decade. Let’s dive into today’s episode. Here is your host, Maxwell Baker.
00:22 Maxwell Baker
Hey y’all, welcome to another epic episode of the Mobile Home Park Broker’s tips and tricks podcast. As always, this episode is brought to you by the Community Price maximizer, tongue in cheek there, and that program is here to provide you the highest price when you exclusively list with us. We do a lot of deals. I would say our close ratio, if you look at the very front page of our website, is over 86% because we are impeccable with our due diligence upfront on your community or communities and, like I said, we closed most of the deals we put on our contract. If you go to our competitors, they are in and out of contract. I guarantee you they are less than 50%. So, if you go with this brokerage here, AKA the mobile home park broker, we have a good possibility that we’re gonna get you the highest price and actually get it done on the 1st, maybe the second try, depending on who the buyer is, but anyways, enough of that, y’all know what we’re about buying and selling communities across the 36 states that we are in and we’ve got a closing cocktail today, and we have a new person who is on the team. She’s not new on the team, but new to this podcast, and that’s Josie Quiroga. I always butcher her last name, but Josie, welcome to the podcast on your first one…
01:53 Josie Quiroga
Thank you!
01:54 Maxwell Baker
…and obviously we have the veteran Eric Wank as well but yeah, Josie, welcome to the show.
01:59 Josie Quiroga
Nice to be here
02:01 Maxwell Baker
Yes, and Eric. You know, I gave Josie a big welcome here, but you’re obviously a veteran in the industry. I think you led the charge on this deal. So yeah, man, congrats again.
02:14 Eric Wanck
Thank you, thank you!
02:15 Maxwell Baker
A little snapping of the fingers here to give you a little applause.
02:20 Eric Wanck
I love being able to share the stage here on the podcast (music plays) There you go.
02:25 Josie Quiroga
(laughs)
02:26 Maxwell Baker
(laughs)
02:27 Maxwell Baker
All right, that’s enough. Go ahead, E
02:29 Eric Wanck
No, no, I was just, that was great. I just; just to have Josie here with me, enjoying the wins, getting deals closed and that she can share the platform and the podcast today with us.
02:43 Maxwell Baker
Yeah, man. So, tell us a little bit about this community, East Village. Tell us what the buyer profile was, how hard it was to get it across the finish line. I mean, it looks like it’s a pretty straightforward deal. City water sewer, paved roads.
02:57 Eric Wanck
Yeah, yeah
02:57 Maxwell Baker
You got some infill
02:59 Eric Wanck
You got it, this was a deal out in Oklahoma, and haven’t done a ton of transactions out there, but this is no different than the other states that we do business in. Fairly straightforward park, did have some older inventory in there as far as all; it was all POH, but good solid infrastructure, that was always a huge plus and all checked out in DD. They have the paved roads.
03:25
A little bit on the buyer profile. He, I would say a little bit earlier in the career, but very aggressive in picking up communities in Texas, Oklahoma, maybe a little bit in Louisiana. So, you know, when this popped into his radar, we got a good price on it, and, you know, kind of going back to you know, get them under contract and get them closed. This was the first buyer and we got it done.
03:52 Maxwell Baker
Nice, man. What were some of the big hurdles you had to overcome on this opportunity?
03:57 Eric Wanck
Hurdles, thankfully, not a lot of huge hurdles. One of the things that we did run into that sort of was something that we had to keep on track of was during due diligence making sure that the park was kept in good condition, collections were solid and strong throughout the entire process, because the buyer was on top of us, and kudos to him, and I think buyers certainly have the right to make sure that at closing day, collections are what they were when you put it under contract. So, really the buyer did a good job of keeping us in check and keeping the seller in check, and the seller did a great job of making sure that collections were still solid all the way through.
04:39 Josie Quiroga
Yeah, yeah, great communication, all, all the way around.
04:43 Eric Wanck
Yeah. The Park Owned homes, truthfully, anytime we have an all POH community kind of cross your fingers on the evaluation and the appraisal coming in where we needed to come in at, but this one actually was financed through a local lender, love local lenders on POH communities, a little tid-bit out there for you buyers, and it actually appraised over our asking price. So, fantastic way to, to get news on that and know that the value is there, the way that we underwrote it.
05:15 Maxwell Baker
Yeah, that’s definitely interesting though on the Park Owned Homes and the community lenders. I know sometimes it’s hit or miss on those. Well, that’s pretty much about the deal. Anything; closing comments, Josie, do you have anything to add? I apologize, I didn’t even ask you if you had something to add.
05:31 Josie Quiroga
Yeah, no, no problem. I mean, it was a pretty simple deal from start to finish. The; like Eric said, there weren’t really a lot of hurdles to overcome. Buyer had his plan coming and he had his business plan to take out the older units, bring in new homes. He already had his financing lined up to get that done, to bring in the new homes and it was just great communication all the way around. Seller was great in keeping up with communication with me and Eric, buyer as well and it really did just float pretty smoothly from start to finish, smoothly as it can, you know, through DD and all the checks and everything, but it was a pretty smooth deal.
06:10 Maxwell Baker
Awesome. That’s a pretty rare situation, y’all. It’s typically not a smooth process when selling communities, but hey, when you work with the mobile home park broker y’all, typically is very smooth by our closing ratio north of 86%, but I think I already mentioned that but, I digress. Any closing comments y’all, before we wrap this little podcast up?
06:31 Eric Wanck
I know that’s pretty much it on my end, Max. I mean, as you said, they’re not always this smooth and, you know, they’re, every time we come down to the week of closing, there’s always going to be a little bit of back and forth and get documents where they need to be but, I think Josie hits it on the head, like communication through the process is paramount to having a smooth closing, a smooth transaction all the way from the very beginning of getting information from you and putting it on the market. So, we’re just thankful for both buyer and seller on this one to be able to get it done.
07:03 Maxwell Baker
On to the next one, Josie?
07:05 Josie Quiroga
Well said. Well said. I will echo all that Eric is saying. Great buyer and seller in the deal and great partner in the deal, Eric couldn’t ask for a better partner.
07:15 Eric Wanck
Thank you, thank you!
07:16 Maxwell Baker
Yes, Eric is a great guy to work with. Great guy! So, if you guys would like the same calibre of service, high level, the best in the industry, all of those call them puffering words in the real estate license arena, then give us a call. We actually do perform, we actually do really well, so it’s not really puffering, it’s facts, y’all. (678) 932-0200. I almost gave you my cell phone (laughs). (678) 932-0200 or email us at info@themhpbroker.com and ask for Eric or Josie, we do, like I said before, 36 states is what we have database, and that’s Texas. If you go north all the way to North Dakota. You go east all the way to Maine and then down south to Florida and everything in between those four corners are the states that we do a lot of business in, researched, and know what’s going on like the back of our hands. So again, hit us up. Thanks for listening and let’s keep moving forward!
